Happiness {5}: A Beautiful Death

 

Participants in “Write 31 Days” pledge to write for 30 minutes on a single topic every day in October.  My topic?  Happiness.

Is it October 31st yet?

It’s only the 5th?

Sigh.  I think this whole writing for 31 days thing might have been a mistake.  Maybe not the writing part, but the happiness part.

We are five days in.  In those five days Cee’s arthritis started acting up and my grandma passed away.  No joke.

I’m afraid for what tomorrow is going to bring.   I’m scared to ask if it could get worse.

“Happy” isn’t in my wheelhouse right now.

My grandma’s passing has me thinking about life and its end, though.

All life will end.  Whether we are decent or terrible people, we will die.

Let’s go back to the idea of happiness and joy.

To recap my meandering thoughts, the Peanuts Gang sings about the simple pleasures in life that our founding fathers fought to ensure us.  (I bet that’s the first time such a sentence has been written.)

But “pizza with sausage” and “climbing a tree” won’t mean much when our lives are over.  The happiness I felt nursing a mug of chai tea today (thanks, AJ!) was a reprieve from the fear and grief of life right now.  But if I die tomorrow, that’s the end of that chai moment.

My kids, my David– the memories will continue on in them.

Happiness is nice, but joy is better.

If I had no kids, I would have more happiness.  That sounds awful, but in a sense it’s true.  I would be able to travel, visit coffee shops, and learn to sew.  I could afford things like gourmet chocolate and dance lessons.  I would be well-rested and well-read.  That would super-up my happiness quotient.

Don’t get me wrong, there are little moments of happiness as we share a story or laugh at a dumb joke.  But as far as my peace and serenity go, having kids isn’t the greatest.  I have some bodily fluid that isn’t my own on my clothes at all times.  Guaranteed.  Poop does not bring happiness.  But when a fussy baby finally gets over a bout of constipation, it sure does bring joy.

Watching my kids grow and learn (and start pronouncing words correctly!) brings a feeling of satisfaction that can’t be touched by a new car.  I wouldn’t trade seeing Moe’s dimples or Elle’s twinkly eyes every day for a clean house.

I am going to die.  And when that happens, I want to have lived a life of joy.

I might not do a lot of fun stuff.  I might not go many interesting places.  But I can choose to find gratitude where I am right now.  I can choose to find happiness right now, but I don’t want to waste a lot of energy on it.  I want to invest my time, talent, and treasure in cultivating joy.

Regardless of anyone’s opinion of life after death, it is a fact that “you can’t take it with you.”  My imaginary dance lessons and fancy chocolate?  I can’t take it with me.  But if I spend my free time serving in soup kitchens and teaching my kids how to be kind, that can’t be taken away.  Sure it will end, but the impact of those actions goes on and on, even after my death.

Okay, that doesn’t mean I’m going to turn up my nose if some lovely soul offers to watch our kids so David and I can go on a yearly date.  We don’t need to shun all worldly happiness in order to have joy.  But we do need to be cautious about investing only in the pursuit of happiness.

I think that’s where my grandma’s generation as a whole gets it right.  Before the inundation of social media, before the dawn of the welfare state, before the complete materialism-ization of our society, people had to talk to each other.  Help each other.  Make due.

Living that way leads to a beautiful death.  A death where people are changed for the better for having known you.  A death where the world is a better place for having been your home.  A beautiful death brings tears, gratitude, and joy.

(This is not the “soft-canonizing” we do after people die.  All the sudden we act like everyone who passed away was Mother Teresa.  A beautiful death involves an acceptance of a person–warts and all.)

As I mourn the loss of my grandma, I contemplate the pain she endured at the end of her life.  I consider the 8 children and 20-some grandkids she leaves behind.  I think about all the boring concerts and sporting events she sat through to support us grandkids, even though she could have been happier doing something else.  There is joy in her simple but beautiful death.

May she rest in peace.

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Day 1:  The Evolution of an Idea
Day 2:  In a Cave
Day 3:  The Pursuit
Day 4:  Peanuts Gang Style
Day 5:  A Beautiful Death